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Jean Jacques Rousseau
Sovereignty and the Public Interest:
A Study into the Foundations ofLegitimate Democratic Authority
By Ian McMurtrie
 
 
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Introduction
The conception of sovereignty in 1762 - the year Jean Jacques Rousseau published
On the Social Contract
- was undergoing fundamental changes. Historically, the Americanand French revolutions were at least a decade distant, but the intellectual upheavalforeshadowed the political violence that would ensue. Jean Jacques Rousseau provided aninfluential and provocative voice in the debate over the nature of legitimate politicalorganization. He built upon the work of predecessors, both classical and contemporary,synthesizing ancient ideals with modern thought and thus challenged the prevailingconceptions of sovereignty. Fundamentally, his works sought to solve the problem of howto make supreme rule
legitimate
.The interactions of interests, institutions and individuals are of concern here;specifically how these factors were aligned and ordered by Rousseau to create justpolitical principles. To begin, a definition of sovereignty will be established. From this, itwill be shown how Rousseau constructed a legitimate sovereign state – beginning withpre-social individuals and their need for a great legislator to form a population into apeople. Subsequently, how the individual will is found in society and how it must be‘denatured’ through
moeurs
and education for the general will to emerge. Only from aproperly constructed and respected general will can the laws, and thus the government, be formed that will institutionalize the proper political alignment. Therefore, only inobserving Rousseau’s path from an individual in relation to nature, to individuals inrelation to others, through persons united in a general will, finally, to
citizens
generatingand obeying a system of laws can a nation be called sovereign, free and equal.
 
 
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Fundamentally, what is at stake in this discussion is the notion of legitimatesovereignty founded upon a common body of law that provides protection for theinterests of a group against external influence, and redress for individuals againstarbitrary repression. Thus, if a spectrum of forces can operate beyond or above sovereignwill, without recourse to law or principle, what portends against the impositions thatsovereignty was intended to defend? To understand the current status of sovereignty, andto address future circumstances where a greater number of entities will be able tosupersede it, we must look to the solutions articulated by Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Sovereignty Defined
The definition of sovereignty is that of a unitary entity exerting control within ageographically fixed region. This sovereign entity determines all forms of policy;including, but not limited to: levying taxes, issuing currency, enacting laws, raisingmilitias, conducting jurisprudence, exacting punishments, settling internal disputes, andadopting or amending a constitution. Sovereign authority implies that only this onespecific body can establish and maintain relations with foreign entities on behalf of theresidents of the territory. Although, there has been some debate regarding the possibilityof an essential definition of sovereignty, “there is in fact a definition that captures whatsovereignty came to mean in early modern Europe and of which most subsequentdefinitions are a variant:
supreme authority within a territory
.”
1
 Some of the philosophers responsible for shaping the modern notion of
of 00

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